SuperGirl Season 4 Episode 11 Review “Blood Memory”
Written by: Jessica Queller & Dana Horgan
Directed by: Shannon Kohli
Starring: Melissa Benoist, Mehcad Brooks, Chyler Leigh, Katie Mcgrath, Sam Witwer, David Harewood
Official synopsis “Kara joins Nia on a trip to Nia’s hometown to visit her family during the town’s annual Harvest Festival; Alex deals with a street drug that is turning people violent and giving them temporary superpowers”
A short epilogue brings us the return of the Russian Supergirl clone. She is seen stopping a missile and some drones before returning to the land with a nose bleed. Rushed to the operating table she is dead and the Russians try to revive her. While using a defibrillator to restart the clones heart a shock wave of purple power is sent around the earth. This power surge makes it way to National city and infects some drugs a couple of fraternity boys are about to ingest. The pills turn them into monsters and start to tear up a party. Only to be stopped by the DEO with the assistance of Supergirl.
We start to see the repercussions of last week’s mind wipe as Alex doesn’t remember The Wizard of Oz is Kara’s favorite movie. Alex is also very short with Supergirl insisting she calls her Director Danvers rather than Alex.
After a brief conversation with James Olsen, Kara decides the best thing to do is give Alex some space. Nia tells Kara how the town she grew up in is a beacon for Aliens and Humans co-existing but can’t make it back for the harvest festival due to all flights being cancelled. Kara therefore agrees to join Nia on a road trip, but she picks the music. During the trip Nia tells Kara she is trans gender and how her life would have been a lot harder had she grown up somewhere else.
I have to say I couldn’t imagine a road trip with someone who has narcolepsy would be much fun, and I’m not wrong. The trip seems to take no time at all with just enough time for one vision. Nia sees her mum crumble to dust Infinity War style. Unfortunately, that was all we see in the car, I can’t help but feel a missed opportunity here. Kara and Nia traveling across the country listening to cheesy pop music in a light-hearted buddy episode could have been a lot of fun.
Back at the DEO Alex starts to realise that part of her memory is missing. She enlists the help of J’onn to read her mind who has to lie and try to convince Alex nothing is wrong. Struggling to crack the case regarding our mystery drug, Brainy goes undercover as a frat boy. Very quickly through speaking ‘Frat Bro’ brainy learns the names of the dealers which sends Alex of in the hunt for them.
Nia speaks with her mother in a dream and learns that she is dying and that Nia is destined to be the next Dreamer. Dreamer appears to be the name Nia will take, a variation to the Legion of Super Heroes Dream Girl. Dream Girl is from the 31st century, the same time Brainy is from which can only lead us to believe the Dream Girl we know is the comics will be a distant relative of Nia.
After the death of her mother Nia struggles to come to grips with having her powers and blames herself for not reading the signs. Meanwhile Alex tracks down the drug dealers only to find them having been mugged by the Children of Liberty who want to use the drug to attack an alien festival. This is cleverly where the two stories interact as Alex and the DEO are tracking drugged up children of liberty to the same festival Nia and Kara are in attendance.
After chaos is caused at the festival the DEO manage to break up the riots with the help of Supergirl. Not before Alex and Supergirl clash again with Alex threatening to arrest Supergirl if she interferes again.
Lena has been a fringe character this season, which has been disappointing after how instrumental she was last season in stopping Reign. This week I feel Lena got the biggest snub yet. Having been such a friend and supporter to both Kara and Supergirl she still doesn’t know the one secret everyone else around her does. On the journey home from the festival Kara tells Nia about her secret identity having only known the girl for a matter of months.
It wasn’t quite a simple as “Hey I’m Supergirl” and there was a very emotional and touching scene on the journey home. Nia’s sister was mad she didn’t inherit her mother’s powers and takes if out on Nia saying she isn’t even a real girl. Explaining to Kara that she doesn’t understand what it’s like to have powers when your sister doesn’t, you could tell it was coming. With a short demonstration of her powers Kara tells Nia she isn’t alone and she is a hero also.
This week’s episode was a solid installment that gave us a very different look at the Danvers sisters dynamics when Kara has to hide being Supergirl. The main bulk to the episode served as an origin story to Nia/Dreamer and with a sneak peak of her costume means we could be seeing her in action as early as next week.
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